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Scorpion Demoness
Scorpion Demoness (Chinese: 蝎子精, pinyin: xiē zǐ jīng) is a demon from the Chinese novel Journey to the West. Her true form is a scorpion with the size of a pipa. When Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) and his disciples are about to leave the Women's Kingdom (西梁女国), scorpion demoness suddenly appears and abducts Sanzang to her cave. She tries to seduce and persuade Sanzang to marry her, but fails and is killed by the Sun Deity of Mao (昴日星官) in the end. Plot Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) and his disciples arrives at Women's Kingdom (西梁国). The Queen of Women's Kingdom learns from her official that Sanzang is the oath brother of Tang Empire's emperor and decides to marry him even though she haven't met him yet. Sanzang and his disciples are afraid of being grounded by the queen after hearing the proposal. They make the plan to accept it first and escape when Sanzang and the queen sends the disciples out of the kingdom. They are about to leave the kindom according to their plan, but the scorpion demoness suddenly appears from the roadside and takes Sanzang away by making a whirlwind. Back to her home, which is a cave called Pipa Cave in Deadly Foe Mountain (毒敌山琵琶洞), scorpion demoness comforts Sanzang with food and persuades him to become her husband. Fearing of being murdered by the demoness, Sanzang talks with her and eat the food she passed to him. Sanzang's disciple Sun Wukong (孙悟空) has arrived for a while and transformed into a bee to monitor on his master. As scorpion demoness and Sanzang's conversation has appeared more and more friendly, Wukong starts worrying that his master could succumbed to the demoness. As a result, Wukong shows his true form to stop their conversation and orders the demoness to release his master. Scorpion demoness, irritated by the interruption, use her magic power to blow out smokes from her mouth and prevents Sun Wukong from seeing her. She calls her servants to shut Sanzang to away, and then bring out her trident to fight with Wukong. They fight out of the cave, where Zhu Bajie (猪八戒) joins Wukong to fight against scorpion demoness. The three of them fight for a long time and neither of them can beat the opponent. Suddenly, the demoness use her poisonous tail to sting on Wukong's head. Unable to avoid the sting, Wukong gets great headache from it and escape with Bajie. Scorpion demoness then gets back to her cave and asks her servants to bring out Sanzang so that she can make love with him. She appears to be extremely charming in front of Sanzang, and takes him by hand to the bridal suite she prepared for their marriage. There she entices Sanzang with all types of methods. She takes off clothes to show her breathtaking beauty and teases Sanzang with seductive language. Despite of the huge temptation from scorpion demoness, Sanzang rejects to make love with her. The struggle goes on till the middle of the night, when scorpion demoness is finally angered by Sanzang's stubbornness. Even though she loves him greatly, the demoness orders her servants to tie Sanzang with rope and then sleeps by herself. The next day, Sun Wukong comes back and learns that his master didn't lose his virginity. He then destroys the gate of Pipa Cave with Bajie and start to fight against the demoness again. The demoness uses her magic tail again and stings on Bajie's lip this time. Bajie escapes with great pain, and Wukong, who is still a little bit frightened by the demoness, follows Bajie to run away. At this moment, Guanyin Bodhisattva (观音菩萨) appears and tells disciples to find the Sun Deity of Mao (昴日星官) to subdue the demoness. Sun Wukong brings Sun Deity of Mao from Heaven's Palace to Pipa Cave and destroys the inner door of the cave with Bajie. The demoness, who is serving Sanzang with vegetarian food after untying him, comes out to fight with the disciples again. The Sun Deity of Mao then shows his true form, a giant rooster, and crows at scorpion demoness. The demoness immediately reverts to her true form under the crow, which is a scorpion with size of a pipa. The Sun Deity crows again, and the demoness' whole body crumbles in death. Character Features Appearance In Journey to the West, scorpion demoness is the demon that represents people's sexual desire, which explains her great beauty and charm. There are not a lot of words that directly describes how she looks besides generally tells she's extremely bewitching. The author, however, depicts her body as "smooth and fragrant" and calls Sanzang's skin "rough" when compared to the demoness. Sanzang is usually illustrated as a superbly good-looking monk with finest body and skin in Journey to the West. It kind of shows us how gorgerous scorpion demoness is. = Magic Power Besides great fighting skills, scorpion demoness knows all types of magic powers. She also has her unique magic called "Horse-Killer Poison" (倒马毒), which is the name of her poisonous sting. All these skills make her one of the most powerful demon in Journey to the West. Fighting skill The female demons in Journey to the West are usually weak in fighting skills compare to male ones, but this is not the case in scorpion demoness. It is mentioned in the book that Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie fight against the demoness together for a long time but no one can beat their opponent. There are not a lot of characters in the book that Sun Wukong cannot defeat with his fighting skills, let alone adding Zhu Bajie's power. Thus, scorpion demoness' fighting skill is definitely among the top tier. Magic Besides using whirlwind to abducts Sanzang, scorpion demoness is great at using smoke and fire. She can breathe out smoke from her mouth and fire from her nose, which she uses frequently when fighting with Wukong and Bajie. It is also told that she can give herself "endless hands" during a fight. This skill enables her to fight against two people at the same time. Horse-Killer Poison (倒马毒桩) The "Horse-Killer poison" is the name of the stinger on scorpion demoness' tail. It is her unique magic and is extremely powerful. She uses her tail to hurt Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and even Gautama Buddha (如来佛祖). It is the only time that Sun Wukong and the Buddha gets injured by someone in Journey to the West, since their bodies are as hard as metals. Nemesis In Journey to the West, it uses Twenty-Eight Mansions to represent food chain of the nature. Since scorpion demoness belongs to bugs, the Sun Deity of Mao, who is a rooster, naturally overpowers her. Even though she owns great magic powers, she also cannot escape from the rule of nature. Category:Characters